This section illustrates useful background information without admission of any technique described herein representative of the state of the art.
Telecommunication networks are being developed in particular by the data transmission properties. The introduction of high-quality sound and possibility of transferring any data at all took place long ago, but there is ever increasing demand for fast data transfer for the needs of people using communication devices. The Internet of things may expand the data transmissions to an extent that is presently difficult to even imagine.
In the long-term evolution (LTE) networks (also often referred to as 4G LTE), there are often multiple access points available to user equipment (UE) for data transfer. Each of these access points has an Access Point Name (APN) that is used for enabling UE to indicate which of many simultaneously available access points should provide the data transmission. The access point in this context may refer to a gateway that interconnects a cellular network such as GPRS, 3G or 4G mobile network to another computer network such as the Internet.
In the LTE, APN is responsible for connectivity requests. Such requests are processed by the Evolved Packet Core (EPC). More particularly, the APN processing may involve the Home Subscriber Server (HSS) node of the EPC.
The HSS stores System Architecture Evolution (SAE) subscription data such as the EPS-subscribed Quality of Service (QoS) profile and any access restrictions for roaming. HSS also contains information about the (Packet Data Networks) PDNs to which the user can connect.
In greater detail, the APN identifies a Gateway GPRS Support Node (GGSN) or Packet Data Network Gateway (P-GW). The APN contains an APN network identifier that defines the Packet Data Network (PDN) to which the connectivity is being requested. The APN may further contain an APN operator identifier that defines the Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN) in which the P-GW or GGSN resides. To this end, the APN has two parts: a network identifier and an operator identifier.
Different APNs may be mapped to different applications by a user via Settings, by pre-provisioning or by Device Management e.g. using OMA Device Management. Consequently, for any such application that requires any special APN, there is a Management Object (MNO) or other MNO provisioned configuration in the device (Mobile Equipment). Other applications are mapped to the “normal” Internet APN. A special APN can be used for company internal tools, for example.
Some unauthorized or unintended applications may attempt to use such APNs that are provided for the UE for special use only (e.g. operator sets up APN for some specific business customer or business).
One issue with the APN is how to enforce the use of particular APN with a given application. The network may, in some cases, deduce the application from the traffic, but often that is only possible only from ongoing communications and with a substantial processing cost for a server of the network.